Thursday, November 29, 2018

A star-studded crowd joined Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the Burlington waterfront Thursday night to kick off a three-day conference hosted by the nonprofit Sanders Institute. Though many of the national progressive leaders taking part in the event were prominent supporters of the senator's 2016 presidential campaign, organizers said it was not related to a potential 2020 run.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, actress Susan Sarandon, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis were among those scheduled to address such topics as climate change, housing and criminal justice reform during the Sanders Institute Gathering.

Before the panel discussions, though, was a Thursday evening reception at the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain featuring motivational speaker Simon Sinek and a keynote address from Sanders himself. The senator's wife, Sanders Institute cofounder Jane O'Meara Sanders, also spoke. In attendance were actors John Cusack —wearing a jacket that said “good night white pride” on the back — and Danny Glover.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday morning to call for gun control legislation, but in doing so he understated the number of gun deaths in Vermont by an order of magnitude.

“In my small state of Vermont, between 2011 and 2016, 42 people were killed by guns,” Sanders said in his remarks.

That’s the same window of time Vermont Public Radio focused on last year in a series documenting gun deaths in Vermont, but Sanders’ figure was way off. VPR’s reporting, which was based on data provided by the Vermont Department of Health, found that 420 people were killed by guns between 2011 and 2016.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

The U.S. House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday released a trove of social media advertisements placed by Russian interests during the 2016 presidential campaign. And three of them featured Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The most instantly memorable Sanders-themed ad was for a book called Buff Bernie: A Coloring Book for Berniacs, featuring line drawings of an exaggeratedly muscle-bound Sanders in a variety of bodybuilder poses.

The ad was placed by a group calling itself "LGBT United," but it was paid for in rubles, and the funds were transferred to Facebook by Qiwi, a Russian payment processing firm. You'd think somebody in the accounting office at Facebook would notice such things.

This particular ad cost "LGBT United" 111.49 rubles. At the current exchange rate, that's ... um ... a whopping $1.91 American. The ad ran for only a single day in March 2016, attracting 848 impressions and 54 clicks.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been blasting former secretary of state Hillary Clinton this week for bailing on a previously agreed debate before the California primary. Wednesday night, Sanders may have found a new debate opponent.

During an appearance on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump said he would be willing to debate Sanders ahead of the June 7 vote.

"If he paid a sum toward charity, I would love to do that," said Trump, who went on to note that the match up "would have such high ratings."

Sanders quickly responded on Twitter.

Game on. I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7 primary.

While Mr. Sanders says he does not want Mr. Trump to win in November, his advisers and allies say he is willing to do some harm to Mrs. Clinton in the shorter term if it means he can capture a majority of the 475 pledged delegates at stake in California and arrive at the Philadelphia convention with maximum political power.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

First there was "Low-Energy Jeb" Bush. Then there was "Crooked Hillary" Clinton. Now, at long last, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has landed on a nickname for Vermont's junior senator: "Crazy Bernie" Sanders.

Trump, who has made it a mission to generate reductive, insulting monikers for each of his foes, first employed "Crazy Bernie" Wednesday morning on Twitter after he — and Sanders — prevailed in Tuesday's West Virginia primaries:

Big wins in West Virginia and Nebraska. Get ready for November - Crooked Hillary, who is looking very bad against Crazy Bernie, will lose!

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton may be leading Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) among pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention. But, Sanders argued Sunday, it would be “virtually impossible” for her to win the nomination with their support alone.

“In other words, it will be a contested convention,” he told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

In a 17-minute address, Sanders turned his attention to those he said would have to push either candidate over the finish line: the Democratic Party’s 719 superdelegates. Unlike pledged delegates, those elected officials and party leaders can vote for whichever candidate they choose.

Sanders made two distinct appeals: First, he said that those hailing from states that voted overwhelmingly for him should “seriously reflect on whether they should cast their superdelegate vote in line with the wishes of the people in their states.”

Second, he said, “It is incumbent upon every superdelegate to take a hard and objective look at which candidate stands the better chance of defeating [Republican front-runner] Donald Trump. And in that regard, I think the evidence is extremely clear that I would be the stronger candidate to defeat Trump or any other Republican.”

Shortly before leaving for Greece Saturday morning, the pontiff met with Sanders in the foyer of the papal residence, according to the Associated Press. The meeting lasted around five minutes.

"It was a real honor for me, for my wife and I to spend some time with him. I think he is one of the extraordinary figures not only in the world today but in modern world history," Sanders told the AP before boarding a chartered jet to return to the campaign trail.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has asked supporters of his presidential campaign to donate to Norwich native Zephyr Teachout’s campaign for a congressional seat in upstate New York.

Teachout, a professor at the Fordham University School of Law, is a liberal darling who wrote the book Corruption in America. She launched a primary challenge against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2014. She’s running for a seat in New York’s 19th district, which is centered in rural Dutchess County, outside Albany.

Sanders asked supporters to donate to his campaign $2.70 — a thousandth of the maximum campaign donation by an individual allowed by federal law — pledging to split the cash with Teachout.

Campaigning in Arizona for her husband, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jane O'Meara Sanders on Monday visited Maricopa County's infamous outdoor tent city jail. She spoke to a contingent of reporters outside its walls in an effort to draw attention to concerns about racial profiling and what she called "inhumane" treatment of prisoners and immigrants.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a right wing icon who created the prison camp in 1993 and has ridden it to national fame, surprised Sanders by interrupting her press conference. He offered her a tour of the sprawling facility, where inmates live outdoors in temperatures that can exceed 100 degrees.

Arpaio further surprised Sanders by mentioning that he had Burlington ties.

"I was head of [the] federal Drug Enforcement [Administration] in Burlington, Vt.," he told her, explaining that he ran the unit between 1978 and 1982 — the year after Bernie Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington.

"I am a very big fan," Arpaio told Sanders, then paused for a while and resumed, "of Ben & Jerry's ice cream."